Screen Time #005

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Navigating the digital world as a parent can feel like charting unknown waters, but fear not! Join us on the Whole Parent Podcast, where we promise to arm you with strategies for managing your child's screen time without the tantrums. As a parent myself, I've faced the same struggles with screen-addicted kiddos. Today, we’ll talk about the brain's dopamine response to screens and reveal constructive ways to help kids ease away from their digital fix, building healthier tech habits along the way.

We all want our children to thrive, and balancing their fascination with screens alongside vital activities like naps and playtime is key. In our latest episode, I share insights on creating a sense of autonomy in your children by involving them in setting screen time boundaries. 

We’ll also explore the effects of screen time on a child's developing brain, ensuring you’re equipped with knowledge and empathy to guide your little ones through their digital day.

Lastly, we'll talk about why completely banning screens is as outdated as a flip phone, so instead let's talk about fostering trust and open communication. I delve into what it means to protect our children in an age where explicit content is just a click away, and how to model balanced tech habits that will serve as the cornerstone of a resilient, tech-savvy family. 

Tune in for an honest and empowering conversation that will leave you feeling more confident as you pilot the parenting controls of our digital age.

Transcript

Jon: 0:00

When it comes time to get off a screen, what we have is a kid who's you're taking away something that's literally constantly causing their brain to have more and more dopamine on a regular basis, and this is not how our brains usually interact with things. There's nothing quite like a screen in this way, and so the dopamine receptors are going and going and you're getting more and more dopamine. You take it away, and so they viscerally often react to the removal of that thing because of loss aversion, so they're afraid to lose that letdown. It's a brand new day. Hello and welcome to the whole parent podcast, the podcast where we dive into the art and science and craziness that is modern parenting. I'm your host, my name is John, I am the founder of whole parent and whole parent Academy, which helps parents to kind of do better than was done for them, and I am just a dad like you trying to figure it out. Figure, trying to figure out how to, how to parent in the modern world and and parent in the most effective and also most loving and kind and compassionate way possible. This episode we're going to be talking about one of the kind of quint, central modern parenting questions, which is what do we do with screen time? What do we do with the reality that our kids are growing up in a screen filled world and you know they're going to have access to iPads and phones and stuff, and many parents who are listening right now might say, hey, you know, we don't do any screen time. That's great If you can, if you can do that. The truth is, though, eventually, your kids are going to be on screens If they go to school traditional school. Increasingly, schools are using screens more. It's just. It's just a reality of the world that we live in. Screens are here to stay, and so how do we help to foster some healthy relationships with screens? How do we help our kids regulate when related to screens? How do we help our kids learn to have good digital hygiene? All these questions and more so we get you know.

Jon: 2:10

As always on this podcast, what we do is we take a bunch of questions that people ask, whether that's through DMs on Instagram or Facebook. A lot of questions from the membership. We have a membership, which is a paid subscription model where you get access to group coaching with me which is kind of like the podcast, but it's live with me and also workshops that I put on and I have a course in there and some other things. So, yeah, we get questions from there, we get questions from all over the place. We ask questions on our stories and people respond in comments and so this through email. Man, I'm just trying to list all of them now. I guess I don't know why I'm doing that, but this question of screen time is a trigger for so many kids, and so we're going to start out with a question from Charlotte. That is reflective of so many questions that we get very, very similar questions. And so Charlotte says Hi, this is Charlotte.

Jon: 3:06

My child's name is Mason, he's five years old and we're having a major issue with his screen time. Every time it's time to turn off the tablet, mason throws a massive fit, complete with tantrum and crying. It's becoming increasingly challenged to manage the situation. How can I help a child like Mason transition away from screen time without these explosive reactions? Well, charlotte, this is basically what we're going to be talking about. You know, for the first half of this episode right, we're going to spend a ton of time on.

Jon: 3:36

This is because of the question of how do we get our kids off screens. Getting kids on screens is pretty easy. Right, you put it in front of them and their dopamine receptors start firing and takes over, right, it's really easy to get a kid onto a screen. It's really tough to get most kids or many kids, I should say off of screens. And if you're listening to this right now and you go, well, my kid has no problem putting their screen down. That's great. But that is not the reality for so many kids, especially neurodivergent kids.

Jon: 4:04

I'll say that if you have a neurodivergent kid, whether diagnosed or you just suspect them of being potentially neurodivergent, you're going to have a big problem getting off of screens, most likely. Right, that's just a part of brain chemistry. That goes especially with things like ADHD. So this is a really common thing. Charlotte, your kid is not broken. You're not a bad parent. You know I say that all the time on this podcast, but it's really important that all of us hear that over and over, because it can feel like constantly we're being judged on our parenting from people outside, from even just watching videos, even people like me. Right On Instagram or TikTok or Facebook, you see a video of mine. It seems like I'm judging your parenting. I'm not right. This is a normal thing for kids to go through, especially five year olds. But you know what I'll add six, seven, 10 year olds sometimes really really struggle to get off of screen time and really struggle to move through that transition. And so I'm going to give you, number one, why that happens, why kids have a big issue oftentimes getting off screens. And then two tips, two tips that, excuse me, two tips that should help you really really process with Mason and move him through and into a better, you know, relationship with screens that is going to allow him to get off more easily and limit the explosive reactions.

Jon: 5:23

Okay, so, number one, why does this happen? The short answer is our brains are not really evolved to deal with something as highly stimulating as a bright little screen. You know, whether it's a phone or whatever, right, they're just not really designed that way. We, 40 millions of years of human evolution at least hundreds of thousands of years of human evolution have lived pretty slow lives relative to today. But today, you know, with the advent of technology and especially of, you know, screens and the entertainment and games that you can have whether it's Minecraft, which is kind of one of the better games, I think, because it increases a lot of creativity and build. You know it's a world building game or things that are just you know YouTube, endlessly scrolling on YouTube or TikTok. I hope you're not letting your kids watch TikTok. They're really little, it's not appropriate. But you know, whatever place that they're finding, they're either consuming their digital content.

Jon: 6:24

It is just incredibly, incredibly intoxicating to the brain and so literally what happens is that you have these little receptors in your brain, a chemical in your brain called dopamine. There's dopamine receptors in your brain and the hormone dopamine. What happens is when you have, when you interact with something that you like or that it's not even really like but that you bond to in some way, dopamine fires, your dopamine receptors fire, so they get a little hit of dopamine. And Dopamine is not the happy drug. People think that all the time like let's read the when I you know, dopamine is my happiness. No, dopamine is the give me more right, and so when it comes time to get off a screen, what we have is a kid who's you're taking away something that's literally Constantly causing their brain to have more and more dopamine on a regular basis. Right, and this is not how our brains usually interact with things. Right, that there are. There's nothing quite like a screen in this way, and so the dopamine receptors are going and going and you're getting more and more dopamine. You take it away and so they viscerally often react to the removal of that thing because of loss aversion. So they're afraid to lose that letdown right. And so it's really challenging for kids to feel that you know dopamine letdown and then they have like this big tantrum. And if you're wondering yet, no, it happens with my kids too, especially with my oldest.

Jon: 7:47

We have a hard, hard time getting off screens, and so a couple things that you can do that can really really help. That number one you can give warnings, although they don't always work right. So you can say, hey, we're gonna get off our screen in five minutes, we're gonna get off our screen in three minutes, we're okay, we have one more minute, you do whatever you need to do save and quit Whatever and this can help kids get to a place where they start to wind themselves down. They, you know, transition to their save point or whatever in their game that they're watching or they finish the video that they're watching. And you know that can help a lot with the loss aversion if they're willing to actually begin to transition and do that. If they just reject, fundamentally reject, then they go. No, I'm working on this and it's gonna take me another hour.

Jon: 8:31

Then the delay and the in taking it away might not be super helpful. It might not be, might not work, but that can reduce a lot of things and you can just think of it in terms of, like, you right? So if you were sitting on your phone writing an email and somebody walked over and took your phone away out of your hand so they could talk to you, that would be probably pretty inappropriate and you would probably react. You know, even if you didn't react externally, you would feel kind of like, look, I don't, that was rude. The same thing is true with kids. You know, a lot of times we think, okay, well, it's time to be done playing with this game or this show. We go and just snatch the device out of their hands and that feels rude, it feels insensitive, and so you know a couple really, really simple things to do setting a timer, setting a time limit. The other thing is don't let them get down super, super deep into the. You know hours and hours of play. As you could probably imagine.

Jon: 9:26

The less time that they spend on screens, the less time they're want gonna want to spend on screens. You know it's the more time they use screens, the more time they're going to want to use screens. It's that's the kind of relationship that most people have, or most kids have, with screens. And so Parents say, well, I really need to use screens for you know, these reasons or whatever and I'm not judging your parenting If, that's if you're using screens that you can cook dinner or whatever, I totally understand, I get it.

Jon: 9:51

The thing that you want to keep in mind is try to limit the amount of screen time per usage Rather than overall, right, so? So it's much easier for a kid to get off of a screen after 15 minutes or five minutes. Then it is for a kid to get off of a screen after an hour. So if you're gonna let them have an hour of screen time a day, try and break it up into, you know, four 15 minute chunks and that may not be possible. You may have to let them use the screen for a longer period of time, you know, in a given certain scenario. But the more you can do that, do that broken up time, the less dopamine Let down they're gonna have and the more likely they're gonna be to get off. And also, you're gonna be building positive neural connections with hey, I got off the screen and it wasn't that bad, right they're? They feel in the moment like they're in fight-or-flight. They feel in the moment like my gosh, this thing that's really important to me is being taken away from me, and they respond and react. Well, the more opportunities they have to have that thing to give up that thing willingly, the more able they're going to be to do that.

Jon: 10:50

And then the last tip that I'll have here as we transition into the next question Is really, you know, this is the magic sauce with the screens it is to actually collaborate and communicate when your child's not on a screen, with the expectations and the Routine for the screen, right, and this comes with creating good digital hygiene and good screen relationships. And so this looks really really simple, right, that sounds complicated, but it's actually really simple when your kid is not using a screen. Have conversations, especially if they're five, six, seven years old, as the the kids are in the questions that we're handling today. This is not you're not gonna be able to do so the two-year-old, in other words but a five, six, seven-year-old. Have a conversation with them about hey, this is why we don't use screens for the whole day. This is, you know, we want to have you do other things right.

Jon: 11:41

There's a huge opportunity cost with screens. A lot of people don't think about that. They think, well, is our screens good for my kid or bad for my kid? It's much more complex than that right screens are. Sometimes they can have positive benefit, sometimes they have negative benefit but but or negative consequences. But ultimately the real thing that your kids missing out on is the rest of their life when they're absorbed in the screen. So it's kind of like, you know, if you know this principle from economics opportunity cost. Opportunity cost is not the actual cost of a thing, it's it's the, it's the thing that you're not doing right. So if you have ten dollars and you spend that on Going to Chipotle, you can't then spend that. Invest that ten dollars in the stock market. So so the idea is, you know, your opportunity cost for your Chipotle is the stock market, not not only ten dollars, but what you could have used the ten dollars for if you didn't use it for Chipotle.

Jon: 12:34

I'm the same thing is true With screen time. So the more time you're spend your kids spends on screens the last time they spend doing other Things that are gonna help them grow and develop better than screens. And so having those conversations with your kids and then also having the conversation of how would you like me to get you off the screen? Because oftentimes we don't. We don't give kids enough credit, but they know themselves pretty well. I mean, don't get me wrong, they're totally unaware of certain things and and Definitely you know, we have to trust our judgment as adults, they don't have an ability to make good decisions all the time for themselves, but whenever possible, to use their own techniques to get them off the screen is better. You know, in they may come up with some ridiculous thing like, hey, well, if you draw me a picture and put it on my iPad, then I'll get off my screen. Or if you say you know Banana, banana, then I will know that what you, what you mean is to get off the screen.

Jon: 13:27

Some of that stuff may seem like, well, this is ridiculous. Of course, it's not going to work, but the reason that it works is because your kid is the one invested in the process, and any kid who is, who is empowered to have autonomy in their own disciplining process is going to be more receptive to that discipline Doesn't matter what it is. And so, with screen time, how can you get your kid invested in, how can you get Mason, in other words, invested into how into what you do when you turn off the iPad? Right? Does he want to set the timer on on the for the five minutes left, or does he want to set the 15 minute timer for the beginning? Does he want to? You know what it could be? Anything, does he want to pick the game that that he's gonna play last, or whatever? Anything that you can do like that, that that gives them a sense of autonomy and agency over the process, is Gonna feel so much better for them when it comes time to turn it off. And so that's.

Jon: 14:22

That was what I would say with the kids who have meltdowns afterwards. Number one you have to understand why it's happening so that you can have some empathy, right? I don't we process after the fact the meltdowns that my son has when he gets off his iPad, and we may even restrict iPad usage in the future. Of his own accord, he may say hey, I want to use my iPad less because it feels like I'm really not having a healthy relationship, this with this right now, which, if you're like what your seven-year-old says, that no, yes, because we've empowered him to say that for years and years right, I'm not some magical amazing parent, my child is not some magical amazing child. It's that Anything that you do repeatedly will be mirrored back to you, and so, because we've talked about it in those terms, hey, it's not you who's having a meltdown over the iPad, it's the iPad working on your brain in this way and it's not your fault.

Jon: 15:09

So, giving agency in the process, understanding and then giving agency, that is huge, huge, huge, huge. And just know, just know, you know every kid struggles with this. So, if you're if you're I shouldn't say every kid, most kids struggle with this. And so if you're like man, I'm just a bad parent and I let my kids use screens too much and and all that other, and you know all these other things, well, that may be true. Maybe your kids are using more screens that are that are Good for their emotional regulation, but we're all trying to figure this out. There is no right answer here. These devices have existed for a very short period of time in human history a blink of an eye in human development, and so we're all trying to figure it out. And will we learn in 20 years that we had this all wrong and we should have done zero screen time before 10 years old? Maybe Will we find out 10 years from now that there's actually no effect whatsoever and we were worrying about something that was totally innocuous. Maybe we don't know.

Jon: 16:05

So give yourself grace, give yourself some positive vibes. Be willing to accept that you don't have the answer here. None of us have the answer, even the experts that I've spoken to and talked to about screen time. They don't have an answer, right, they say no screens before two, and then they say well, except for face time. And then they say well, actually. And they go back and forth. And I don't want you to sound like everybody says you know you should have unlimited screen time. That's certainly not the case, but you know we don't know the effects long term of these things. People now are saying that there's some symptoms that seem to be similar to the symptoms of ADHD and kids who have extended screen time use. But it's not ADHD, who knows. So just give yourself some grace, understand that that there's. This is not going to be a perfect process and try and, as much as you can, empower your kid to set you know you can set the limits but to empower them to help you in the limit setting, and they're going to be way more attuned and accustomed and willing to do that, all right.

Jon: 17:08

So our next question is from Hannah says hi, this is Hannah. I have a five year old named Gabriel. I'm dealing with a bit of a dilemma regarding screen time. Whenever I put on a show for Gabriel to watch so I can get put his younger brother down for a nap, he seems less regulated and often ends up in a bad mood afterwards. On the one hand, it helps to manage the short term situation, but on the other, I'm worried of the effects on his behavior. How can I balance screen time for my child while maintaining a peaceful nap routine for his younger sibling? This is a really, really great question, hannah, and it goes into what I was saying to Charlotte.

Jon: 17:40

And then what about Mason and Gabriel's, also five? And so I want to dig a little bit deeper on the neuro anatomy here and the biology, but then also give you some practical parenting advice too. So the short answer is why are kids less regulated after they get off screens. Well, basically what I was saying about Mason, they have this dopamine let down, which means they were getting constant flow of dopamine into their brain Not constant, but it's hard to explain but they were getting hits of dopamine in their brain which was making them continue to do the activity. And then, when the activity ends, whether they have a meltdown in that moment or whether they just, you know, an hour later are really still struggling, they are still going through what you might call this is not a medical term, don't hear me using this medically but like a dopamine withdrawal. Basically, their body is still like, hey, I'm having trouble getting out of this rut of I had this thing and now it's gone, this dopamine, and also, if you don't know this, so the way that dopamine kind of gives us cravings to go out and do something that we get dopamine from.

Jon: 18:54

So a great example of cigarettes although the screens are not addictive in the same way as cigarettes but is that? You know, when you want something, your body will give you a small hit of dopamine to remind you of how good it's going to feel to do that thing. Right? So when you come in contact with something it's called being triggered, right, so you get triggered by you. A certain activity might trigger a craving for a cigarette, for example. Well, the thing with screen time is that you know, every the more you're on your phone, the more that you know they see screens all around them, all over, and so sometimes it can feel like the more screen time that they have over here, the more dysregulated they are later, because they're constantly being kind of triggered like go back to the screen, go back to the screen.

Jon: 19:37

The real answer is, hannah, try and cut down as much as you can on the long screen time things. So how long does it take to put down Gabriel's little brother for a nap? Well, maybe 15 minutes, maybe 20 minutes, I don't know your life, but maybe you can find a way, after you put him down, to not do screen time for the entirety of the nap. So maybe you would, you know, have lunch with your son or some do some other activity, especially a physical activity which I understand is can be loud, especially in the winter time, and then you have, you know, kids sleeping upstairs and or you kids, kids sleeping in another room, and then you have another kid running around. That may not be possible, but if you can get your child moving and active and get their blood flow going, then that actually can help regulate them related to their dopamine let down for their screens. And so things like any sort of repetitive movement, like jumping jacks, running around the block, things like that, any sort of physical activity that can really really help and in amazing, amazing ways. So exercise in some way is a way to break this down.

Jon: 20:44

And then also, you know, if the nap is an hour long or whatever, just try and break up in the middle. We're not using a screen time for the whole hour. We're maybe doing for the first little bit and then we're going to take a break from it and then maybe we do it again. That's that when you don't have a full hour, you're going to have a lot easier time with the kind of post iPad blues that I call it, when a kid really struggles with that and it could be a sign of neurodivergence. It's not necessarily that. Again, I'm not a doctor. I don't know your child individually, nor could I diagnose them, even if I wanted to, but just understanding how the screens affect the brain, this is an important piece, and so the more time that you can spend moving and active, especially after that iPad goes away or that tablet goes away. That can be a huge benefit for you.

Jon: 21:37

And then you mentioned you didn't mention a tablet. You mentioned just putting on a show. So is that a TV in your house? It might be really, really beneficial, if it is an iPad, to switch to a TV. So TVs are bound in a room and actually one of the things that's most difficult for kids is that the unlimited access to having the tablet wherever they go. That's more dysregulating than watching a show in a room and then getting up and moving to a different room, because then that trigger doesn't exist in that constantly. So that might be up if you're not already using a TV or something that's stationary that can't be brought with them. That might be another way of kind of getting rid of those that bad mood afterward.

Jon: 22:20

Also, just understand that you're worried about the effects that it's having on its behavior. I definitely get that, hannah. I am totally in agreement with you. A really, really positive thing you can do other than everything that I said for Mason too, which is, hey, how do we get rid of this, how do we put it down? Those are all things that can help to avoid that dopamine letdown too, to give Gabriel some agency in the process. But the other piece here is to remember that most of these effects seemingly right now, according to the research, are short-term, and so you're definitely balancing a thing here, but it's not like if you choose to do this one way or the other, it's going to totally affect your child for the rest of their life. That's seemingly not what happens, and so, again, giving yourself some grace to understand that parenting is not perfect there's no such thing as perfect parents. It's going to be difficult and, yeah, even in this case it's definitely a challenging situation, and I'm right there with you.

Jon: 23:12

Hey, if you're enjoying this episode of the whole parent podcast, I have a question for you, or I guess it's a request, and that is for you to go right now I know it's going to cost you three minutes of your time, but to go right now into your podcast app, wherever you're listening to this, and to rate this show, and, if it gives you the option to review this show, to write a review, to tell me what you think about the episode that you're listening to or about the podcast as a whole. You have no idea how valuable this is, as a podcaster, to have people write positive reviews about your show, to have the maximum possible number of good reviews and ratings. It's literally helps the platform to know, whatever that platform is Apple podcast, spotify, google podcast it helps that platform to know that this is valuable material, valuable insight for parents, and so if you want to help spread the message that I'm trying to spread as whole parent on the whole parent podcast to the masses, to all of the parents who desperately need this information, the number one thing that you can do right now is to go into your podcast app to rate this show and to review this show. The second thing I want to ask you to do is that when you're done with this episode and I'm gonna remind you of this at the end of the episode two when you're done with this episode, to share this episode with one parent in your life who you think this may be beneficial for. I know that can feel intimidating to click share, to Open up your text message app or open up an email and and put something like this a link to a podcast in there, but I really want to encourage you to do that, because I have heard story after story from people who found whole parent because Another parent in their life shared a video or shared a podcast episode with them. And so if you can do that right at the end of the episode, as soon as you're done Listening, just hit that text bubble, send this to another parent who might benefit from it. You have no idea how impactful that can be, not only for them, but for me and my platform. Without further ado, let's get back to the podcast episode.

Jon: 25:17

Question number three. This comes from Sophie. She says I'm concerned about my child, scarlett, who is seven years old. Lately I've been noticing that she's been exposed to explicit or violent content through media, even unintentionally. It's becoming increasingly difficult to monitor her screen time and what she's exposed to. I worry about the impact these might have on her Emotional development. Can you provide me with some guidance on how to protect my child from explicit or violent content While allowing her to use technology in a safe and age-appropriate way? You know, sophie, this is a really, really amazing and good question, and it's Unfortunately part of the world that we live in today that this has to be a question.

Jon: 25:55

I don't remember the exact statistics on this, but if you, if you Google it? What's the average age that a person, that a child, is exposed to explicit content on the internet and it's it's outrageously low. I think it's like seven or eight years old, I don't, I don't remember exactly, but you have to look it up. But just understanding that this is part of what your kids are going to be exposed to, then the key becomes having really nuanced and age-appropriate conversations about what they might see and then in a way where your kids feel safe to ask questions and bring things to you so that they can then Come to you with those things and when they do, you can say hey, you know, this is something that maybe you shouldn't have seen and let's, let's, you know, look to to find better Apps to use or whatever. So, seven years old, you know Unrestricted access to YouTube. As much as YouTube tries to prevent explicit or, you know directly, violent content on their platform, they can't. I Would say that you know YouTube kids is significantly better than YouTube. But you know, on a Unrestricted access to a web browser without a parent, not a good, not a good, you know, idea apps like tiktok and Instagram, social media apps there are ways that people get around on those apps their content moderation, although it tends to be a little bit better than YouTube from what I've heard.

Jon: 27:23

But the answer is you're just not, you're not going to prevent totally your child from being exposed to explicit or violent content. It's impossible. And so because of that, you really have to have the Conversations with them. You know, I think you should be talking to your kids in an age-appropriate way about sex and about Violence to you know again, age appropriately and about things like war. Right, we're in the midst of a Violent world and so, with that being the case, the idea that your kid is totally immune From images that even may they may not even see themselves on technology, but images that other kids may bring to them. You know, hey, how many kids who are in Sophie and Scarlett school have a Cell phone that they can bring to school, you know, and the schools might try and prevent that, but you can't right. Or they go to somebody. You know Scarlett goes over for playdate and then her friend shows her something that she has unrestricted access to. So you're never going to be able to prevent it. The best thing to do is to have these conversations and say, hey, you know, if you see something where you know there's nudity, or where you know adults are acting in this way, or if it seems like it's really aggressive or violent, or if you see blood or whatever you know, walk away and and explain. You know, the reason for that is because I want you to be safe and I want you to internalize things at a level at which you can have you know, understand them and and then to be the safe person to say, hey, I'm gonna have these conversations with you, I'm not gonna hide these things from you, right, we're gonna have these conversations.

Jon: 28:58

I just was when I came across a video the other day of a parent who I think was like on Christmas they were telling the story of their childhood and on Christmas their whole family went to a movie and it was very clear that the movie was Going to be like highly sexual and lots of violence in the first couple minutes and the parents stood up and walked out of the movie with their Daughter and she was, like you know, so embarrassed because she was like ten years old or whatever she's like. Ah, you know, I can take it, it's not a big deal. And when she's telling the story, a person next to her and I wish I knew the content creator so I could, so I could talk about this. But the person next to her started to cry and she said why are you crying? She said, well, my parents never protected me for that stuff and it was really, really, you know, disconcerting to me as a child.

Jon: 29:40

Kids know when stuff is not really designed for them and and that can be incredibly Confusing to them. And so what you're doing here is you're not demonizing, you know, action movies or whatever. You're not demonizing sex and bodies. And if you are in the way in which you're communicating about these things, please let's do better, right? Let's? Let's use anatomical names for body parts. Let's use, you know.

Jon: 30:03

Let's talk about safe adults. Let's talk about, you know who is allowed to to touch their body, and the answer is you know, nobody without your consent, except for maybe your mom and dad. And and even then you know, hey, it should be in a certain context and you know if, if anybody is Touching you in these ways or or trying to talk to you about these things, you should bring that to us, right? And so it's not just about media, it's also just about, you know, making your child less susceptible to predators. Predators thrive on parents who are afraid to have Real difficult conversations about bodies and sex. That's how predators are able to maintain their control over kids.

Jon: 30:41

Is that they get to define the narrative, because the parents have not defined that narrative, and so you know You're you're right to worry about the emotional impact, are they? You said that you worry about the impact that might have an emotional development. You're absolutely right to worry about that. But the answer is not, you know, total and complete abstinence from all technology because, because they can't be right, they're going to be around other people who have it. The answer is to prevent Through conversation and an open accountability and saying, hey, whatever you, if you ever hear a word, you know this is the same thing and you know it's obviously very different.

Jon: 31:18

But but when people kind of me and say, well, my kid is dropping the f-bomb around or my kids saying this or that and the other, I don't want them to speak that way, oh yeah, that you can. You can tell them that, though that way of speaking is not so, you know, acceptable in general social society, although it kind of is is the truth, but that you know those are adult words or that you don't want them to use those words in those way, in those ways, but but it should always be safe for them to bring anything to you. So, hey, you know, I will always tell you what a word means. That's one of my rules for my kids you can always ask me what a word is, and if you don't know what it is, I will, you know, tell you are you trying to say this word? And then, yeah, that's what I'm. Yeah, I heard my friend say that and I say, okay, do you know what that means? That means poop, and you know, but it's a way of saying poop that makes people kind of uncomfortable oftentimes, and so we have to be careful with the way that you can. They use that word, but also you can always use that word to me if you're ever having questions about it.

Jon: 32:13

And so the same thing is true about violent content, explicit content that they are gonna see. They are going to see it, and, and the best thing you can do is get ahead of it. It sounds like you're really on the ball here with scarlet, who's seven. I don't know how much exposure she's had so far. Obviously, you can always go out and seek support from a child therapist or a child psychologist. But it seems like if you're already kind of getting ahead of this, you can do a lot of the work just by having really good Conversations.

Jon: 32:40

And so you know there are apps that you can also use, that that you know I should. I would be remiss to say that there aren't. You know there's. There's parental controls, kind of all the there. They're always around these things and, and the most, the biggest way around all this stuff is that Oftentimes I think it's even a majority of kids are not exposed to their first explicit or violent content On their own devices or at their own home. It's that somebody else's home, so that's just a reality, right? So you can set up all these you know apps on their iPad or whatever that tracks their, their Browsing and tracks their youtube watching and all that, and that can be really positive. That can be really good. Again, it tells you after. Some of it blocks the content up front, some of it tells you afterwards, but either way, you know that you install that technology on your kids devices. There's a good chance that that it's not even going to be on one of their devices. It's not even going to be in your own home, and so nothing is a replacement for having really good conversations about.

Jon: 33:38

You know why pornography is harmful, why watching pornography can be linked to all sorts of Bad things related to later sexual Development, not development. Or you know relationship with sex and relationship with partners and unrealistic expectations. Or or you know so much of pornography is about abuse, right, it's abuse of relationships. Or you know even non-consensual relationships and how that you know exposing yourself to that can be deeply harmful. So just Identifying for your kids that you know these things are out there and you know you don't have to worry about it Something to be afraid of. But if you come across it, you know it's not good for your brain, it's to do this and to engage in it. And you know, if you want, if you ever have questions about it, you can always bring it to me and I'm happy to sit down with you and and figure out what's going on. And and you know, no judgment, right, there's never going to be. You're never going to get in trouble for something that you accidentally find on the internet, or even that you willingly go out and search, but then you bring to me, um, and so you know, I would say that those apps they're. They're. They're good, especially for, again, the unintentional uh, being exposed to violent media or explicit media. But but it's never going to be perfect and the real way to do this is to have really deep, nuanced conversations with your kids and that and that's.

Jon: 34:56

I've talked to so many child psychologists and child therapists about this and they kind of come all back. Not all. Some of them will advocate for, yeah, never let your child use any device. And and it seems pretty unrealistic to me, to be honest, the ones who try and go, yeah, just zero screen usage. And you know, you can have a phone but it's has to stay in the house or whatever like there there are. There are people who try and advocate for that, and I'm not even saying it's a bad idea, I'm just saying it's pretty unrealistic for our kids because they're not even necessarily going to be exposed at our house. And so then you're going to say they can't go to anybody's house.

Jon: 35:26

Okay, well, I understand being very careful about who, who, which adults you allow your children to be around. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a big sleepover guy. I don't think that that's usually a good idea, but you know you're never going to be able to bring 100% of their interactions with other people Without your, without you being there, and honestly, you shouldn't like. If you're mediating all of their interactions with other people, that's not setting them up for later development in other ways. Right, and sometimes we can, in an effort to really really Prevent all harm to our kids, we can actually wind up setting them up to Be not as resilient long term.

Jon: 36:01

And so I'm not saying that you should ever intentionally expose your child to any Expositor violent content on your own, but just be the person who who can look at this and go, hey, when it happens, it's not the end of the world. We are going to process through it, we are going to talk about it. You know we can protect our children from an exposure violent content primarily by their own understanding that it's not, you know, good for them or age appropriate for them and so that they they should walk away. I mean, that's really it, and that type of trusting relationship is only built very intentionally. So that's what I would say, sophie, it's not a good answer, because You're asking me a question about a world that I wish we didn't live in, which is a world where kids get exposed to things they shouldn't be exposed to. But but the best way that we can handle that is actually to Understand that and then adjust accordingly.

Jon: 36:51

Do I think that any kid should have to be talked about sex before the age of you know 9 or 10? No, I don't. But the reality is they do have to be taught about it. At age 5 or 4 you know the first conversations about bodies and you know not allowing adults to to manipulate that them in any way. And that's the world that we live in and we have to be careful. And being careful Looks like getting ahead and being the one who for lack of a better term controls the narrative that you, as their parent, are Not going to allow the world and and a harmful person or an abusive person to control that narrative. You are going to get out in front of it and say, hey, if you see this, please come tell me, talk to me, you won't be in trouble, I'm here with you. I just want to do whatever is best for you. So I hope that that starts to answer your question and starts to Kind of give you a better idea and make you feel a little bit more, if nothing else, feel a little bit more at peace, that, yeah, that technology, as as dangerous as it is, it's here to stay.

Jon: 37:52

I've said that from the beginning of this episode. There's nothing we're going to do to completely get around it, and so, because of that, we're just going to, we're going to do our best to be amazing parents in the midst and I can't say I want to end with this If you're doing everything else that we're talking about at whole parent, if you're doing all of the other really amazing parenting work beyond Just screen time stuff right, if you go, if you come into parenting and you're just looking for tips and tricks and how do I get my kid off my screen and off their screen, and x, y and z, and I just want this quick win, but I'm not going to do any of the other, you know, attachment stuff, I'm not going to do any of the other secure Bonding stuff, I'm not going to do that stuff Then the result is necessarily going to be that these aspects of the really difficult parts of parenting, the parts that are, there's no right answer, there's no good Answer, and how to talk to a seven-year-old about the explicit content or the violent content that they were accidentally exposed to on the internet, that stuff is going to get really, really challenging. But for the parents who are doing everything else, this stuff yes, it's a bump in the road, but you've built up so much of a relationship to be able to weather that. You know the the meltdowns over Getting off the device or the bad feelings the hour after they're using the device, that stuff. If you've built a relationship of trust and accountability with your kid, in autonomy with your kid, you're going to find that those things are a lot easier to manage.

Jon: 39:12

And so if you're listening to the screen time episode and you're like, well, okay, I was just looking for some quick solutions on screen time, I hope that you've gotten them. But the real answer is you got it. It's it's it's everything that you do. Professional athletes talk about this all the time. It's everything you do in the off season, not during the season, right? So much of parenting is what you do In the rest of life and in the rest of how you're modeling healthy screen habits to your kids.

Jon: 39:37

And I'll end with that. I usually end with one extra tip. The last tip I'll say is Kids mirror what you model. And so if you don't have a healthy relationship of screens, if you use your phone too much, if you can't tear yourself away from your shows at night, if you can't do all of these things, it's gonna be. It's your kids are gonna see that. They're gonna see how that's modeled, that your phone is the most important thing in your life, and they're gonna start to place, you know, disproportionate deference to that device too, that they're gonna they're gonna disproportionately Feel attached to that, and so you know it always starts with you, and so do your own work About limits. Set your own limits, you know. Do whatever you need to do on your phone to to get yourself off, and then model that for your kids, and and the result is going to be, I think, a lot easier.

Jon: 40:25

Hey, I'm back. It's the end of the episode. I just wanted to ask one more time, to remind you, I should say, because I already asked you To go ahead and share this episode about screen time with somebody in your contact list, whether that's an email or a text message, or even physically going to somebody who you know and saying, hey, there's this podcast I've been listening to, it's brand new. There's this episode on screen time. I really, really think that you'll benefit from it. You have no idea how many parents are struggling with screen time right now in your life, not just to mention, you know, all the parents in the world, but the parents in your life who are struggling. How do I get my kid off their screen? How do I get my kid off their ipad? How do I get my kid to have good relationship with screens going forward, you have the opportunity to help that person absolutely transform their parenting journey by simply sharing this with them. So please go and do that right now.

Jon: 41:14

If you didn't rate the show and review the show in the middle of the episode, please do that as well, and you know. Just one more call to action here if you're not on the email list yet, you got to be there. It's where all of the best stuff from whole parent comes out. It's where all of the information about upcoming events that I'm doing, the upcoming book updates about that, digital products that we might be releasing, and then just free content every week a really awesome email that I send out every week with packed full of good parenting Advice and wisdom and stories, and so if you have not done that yet, there's a link in the show notes for you to go in there To put your first name and your email in. There's no cost for it at all. Enjoying the whole parent email list. All right, I'll see you in the next episode.